Strength and elastic buckling of a sandwich cylindrical pressure vessel with an individual functionally graded core

Abstract

The paper is devoted to a sandwich cylindrical pressure vessel with hemispherical and superellipsoidal dished heads loaded with external uniformly distributed pressure. The distinguishing feature of this sandwich structure is an individual functionally graded core. The strength and buckling problems are numerically FEM studied in the linear range. The calculations are carried out for vessels with aluminium faces and aluminium foam core. As a result stress distributions along the meridian and through the thickness of the shell have been generated as well as the buckling modes and buckling loads. Based on the obtained plots it is seen that the stress distribution is more favourable for the tank with superellipsoidal head especially when the shear stress in the core is considered. Moreover, the distribution of shear stress through the thickness of the tank changes considerably depending on the part of the tank in which it is measured.